(1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to launch systems and is directed more particularly to a support and alignment assembly for use on a moving vehicle, such as a submarine, having a fixed receiver.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Submarines are provided with fixed launch tubes for torpedoes and other missiles and ordnance. The tubes penetrate the pressure hull of the vessel. The launch tubes are arranged in a manner consistent with safety, the architecture of the vessel, and watertight integrity. Proximate the tubes is disposed an arrangement of shelf or frame-like structures for storage of the missiles and/or other ordnance, and a handling system for selecting a weapon, aligning the selected weapon with a selected launch tube, and for feeding the selected weapon into the selected launch tube.
Because of the length-to-diameter ratio of the weapons, and their relative fragility, tolerance on the alignment of weapon and tube during loading is critical. Consequently, current designs for storage, handling and loading systems employ structures securely fixed to the hull, and are aligned with the launch tubes during construction. Such structures do not themselves provide significant shock and acoustic isolation from the hull. Accordingly, considerable effort and expense is devoted to design and analysis of the rigidly fixed structure and to partially isolating substructures to ensure adequate vibration and acoustic isolation. There is, accordingly, a need for a missile support assembly which is resiliently mounted in the submarine so as to xe2x80x9cfloatxe2x80x9d relative to the hull.
It is apparent that such a xe2x80x9cfloatingxe2x80x9d structure would not maintain a supported missile in alignment with a launch tube at all times. There is accordingly a further need for an alignment assembly which is operative on such a xe2x80x9cfloatingxe2x80x9d support to align a missile with a launch tube.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide a support system for a vehicle having a fixed receiver, the system including a storage structure which is fixed to the vehicle by resilient mounts which permit the storage structure to move relative to the vehicle.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an alignment system for use in conjunction with the aforementioned support system for aligning an object retained by the storage structure with the fixed receiver, such that the object may be pushed into the receiver.
With the above and other objects in view, as will hereinafter appear, a feature of the present invention is the provision of a support assembly for use on a vehicle having a fixed receiver, the assembly comprising a loading tray for supporting an object, a storage structure for supporting the loading tray, and mounts resiliently connecting the storage structure to the vehicle.
In accordance with a further feature of the invention, there is provided a support and alignment assembly for use on a moving vehicle having a fixed receiver mounted thereon, including the assembly comprising, a loading tray for supporting an object receivable by said receiver, a storage structure for supporting said loading tray, mounts resiliently connecting said storage structure to the vehicle, indicator means on the receiver, at least one sensor on said tray for reading a position of said indicator means, said sensor being adapted to send a signal indicative of a position of said tray, and thereby an object on said tray, relative to said indicator means, and thereby the receiver, a control device adapted to receive said sensor signal and compute movement of said tray necessary to align the object with the receiver, said control device being adapted to send corrective signals, and alignment means mounted on said storage structure for receiving said corrective signals and for moving said tray to bring the object in said tray into alignment with the receiver.
The above and other features of the invention, including various novel details of construction and combinations of parts, will now be more particularly described with reference to the accompanying drawings and pointed out in the claims. It will be understood that the particular device embodying the invention is shown by way of illustration only and not as a limitation of the invention. The principles and features of this invention may be employed in various and numerous embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention.